Hunger strike against state move called off

The hunger strike by six members of a group of unaided Marathi medium schools ended on Wednesday after education minister Rajendra Darda assured them that he would look into their demands.

Darda, Shiv Sena leader Diwakar Raote and Hussain Dalvai from the Congress came to Azad Maidan and assured the protestors that their demands would be considered. “A new set of laws would be proposed in the monsoon session to give grants to the new schools and no action would be taken for running the private unaided schools,” said Dalvai. Six members of Shikshan Hak Samanvay Samiti were on an indefinite hunger strike since Monday demanding permission to run unaided private Marathi schools.

The state has not given permission to any new private Marathi medium primary or secondary school since 2008 and had passed a circular to about 4,500 schools in June last year to shut the schools without permission.

On January 22, the HT was the first to report about the statewide agitation to protest against the government’s refusal to grant permission to more than 6,000 proposals to set up new primary and secondary private Marathi schools.